What can we say, except a HUGE congratulations to the wonderful Dame Judith Binney on her 2010 NZ Post Book of the Year win.
I keep writing sentences and deleting them as seeming unfitting – all I can think of is “bloody good choice”.
Category : BookieMonster News, Books for Sale, Featured
Father’s Day is almost here! And aren’t Dads just great to shop for? They’re always so easy, right, you know exactly what to get them, there’s always something they need…
Ahem. Sorry, I was lost in some strange parallel universe there for a minute. Dads are awful to shop for. You never know what to get them. You want to get them something that tells them how amazing you think they are, yet doesn’t look like something you made in Standard 3 with macaroni.
So they end up with another BBQ tool set. *sigh*
Fear not, gentle readers! BookieMonster’s here to save the day with our handydandysuperduper Father’s Day Gift Generator! Just scan the detailed “Dad Descriptors” and choose the nearest fit to your Dad, click on the link, and before you know it it’s Father’s Day and you can present your gift with little-to-no embarrassment.
And, helpfully, we’ll keep running these over the next few days so you can keep checking back for more ideas.
Get purchasing! Those perfect presents don’t buy themselves you know!
What the Dog Saw and other adventures by Malcolm Gladwell, Penguin, RRP $30, ISBN 9780141044804, Available now.
You can always count on Malcolm Gladwell to deliver an entertaining and informative read – the one problem is when you gather the shorter essays in a long form like this it starts to look a little repetitive.
But, honestly, when you’re dealing with journalism/essay-writing as good as this that becomes a small distraction. Gladwell just has a great knack for taking odd subjects (the history of the birth control pill, reading a mammogram, the secrets of informercial hawkers, plagiarism) and making them engaging for everyone.
Because what he’s really about here is not the subjects themselves, per se. He’s not a journalist in the traditional reporter sense, or even in the traditional features writer sense. Gladwell is definitely an essayist and what he’s essaying is what goes on inside brains. Not just human brains, we’ve got dog brains here also, but mostly human brains. (“Braaaains”)
Gladwell is a consummate observer of people and interpreter of their words and their actions. And in many of these essays he shows us how the ways in which we think can link the most seemingly disparate things that we do (e.g. interpreting mammograms and interpreting intelligence photos from foreign countries).
And he knows how to serve up a page-turner. This is great writing, fun to read and damn interesting to think about for several weeks afterwards. In the words of the man himself:
Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. Not the kind you’ll find in this book, anyway. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think.
So I am a bad blogger, bad bad BAD blogging monkey! I have not been entertaining you like I should with my witty words and general gab.
But SRSLY I am BUSY you guys! I just have an amazing amount of stuff going on. My life is stuffed with stuff. Some of it involves reading and books but at the moment, not enough!
You can help – please buy from us! We’ve got almost 800 listings at the moment and I know it’s a lot to go through but duuuuuuuude – there’s got to be something in there for everyone!
Father’s Day is coming up you know. Hint, hint.
And if you don’t feel like buying anything then please tell (send the link http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=1998646, go on) your family, your friends, your enemies, your workmates, your neighbours, your cats, your dogs – open up a bank account in your guinea pig’s name and get them to buy a book! (“Hello, I’d like to open an account.” “Certainly sir, and first may I have your name?” “Mr Fluffykins McSnugglebottom the Third.”)
However if, by same insanely crazy thousand to one chance you don’t want any of the books we have for sale (srsly, what are you on?) then check out Book Depository UK and our affiliate link – they have MILLIONS AND MILLIONS (and miwwions) of books for sale and you don’t pay any shipping at all whatsoever nosirreebob so help them.
And, if after all that you’re wondering what’s keeping me busy (apart from the usual) then you should check out my Posterous blog AtNgaire in which I link to all sorts of web malarkey that captures my fancy and write about exciting things like social media, online marketing, community management and basically anything else I want. Yes, I’m one of those wonks. But you can be one of them too, just by commenting – or really, just send me cool stuff to put on there. It’s fun.
Not leastly you should totally check out the amazingly awesomely extraordinarily choice Groupy and grab yourself a besty deal. They’ve been keeping me busy too.
Right-o! 
Addition: I meant to add also if your Dad isn’t the reading type but is the obsessive with detail and military models type – or just a military buff then check out Mr Monster’s site at www.militarymodels.co.nz – he’s running a huuuuuge Father’s Day sale over there! Plus he’s all real clever and stuff. We loves him. ♥ Awwwwwwwww.
This week I’m selling books! Okay, I sell books most every week but this week I’m taking advantage of my own advertising space to tell you about the books I’m selling!
So here’s some recommendations from me of books that you can buy (now, right away, this instant!):
Classics (for the refinement of one’s mind)
- The Darling Buds of May by H.E. Bates
- A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
- A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
- Vanity Fair by Thackeray
- The Rescue by Joseph Conrad
New Zealand (struth cobber!)
- A Dagg at My Table : Fred Dagg
- Beak of the Moon by Philip Temple
- Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
- Daylight by Elizabeth Knox
- Unsolved Murders in New Zealand by Tony Williams
Non-fiction (for the edumacated amongst us)
- D-Day by Stephen Ambrose
- Coffee, Tea, or Me?
- Katey : The Life and Loves of Dickens’s Artist Daughter
- Great Books : My Adventures with Homer, Rosseau, Woolf and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World by David Denby
- Ancestral Images : The Iconography of Human Origins by Stephanie Moser
Historical fiction (bodices are ripped!)
- The Return from Troy by Lindsay Clarke
- Alice Hartley’s Happiness by Philippa Gregory
- Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike
- The Book of Loss by Julith Jedamus
- A Singular Hostage by Thalassa Ali
Literary fiction (coo-er, we are fancy!)
- Oscar & Lucinda by Peter Carey
- The Courage Consort by Michel Faber (and check out my review here)
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith
- The Twenty-Seventh City by Jonathan Franzen
- When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Animals (teh kittehs, teh goggies, teh birdies)
- The Cat Fanciers Association Complete Cat Book
- Stuff on My Cat
- Owning Happy, Healthy Cats
- The Good, The Bad and the Furry
- Dog Palaces
- A Step-by-Step Book About Budgerigars
Weird but cool stuff (Because we’re weird. And cool. Very cool.)
- The 100 Best Films to Rent You’ve Never Heard Of
- Fish That Fake Orgasms And Other Zoological Curiosities
- Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore
- Patently Ridiculous!
- The Dead Travel Fast
I know, what a selection, right? There’s more! (like, waaaaay more). Check out BookieMonster’s Trade Me Bookshop!
